Grace O’Connor

Undergraduate Fellow

“Having an internship during this time is forcing me to be more independent. I can’t check in with my mentor all the time so it’s forcing me to do what I’m capable of doing. I’ll have a morning to myself and if there’s stuff I can’t do I’ll go to the next meeting with concrete questions. I also have to force myself to go through every step on my own. It’s harder, but it’s a good experience.

I don’t want to say that it’s better or worse, but there’s definitely aspects of being in my own space or being able to control my own time that gives more autonomy. But so much is missing from the Tyson experience, being onsite more, eating and doing things together.”

What have you enjoyed about working at the intersection of engineering and ecology?

”In a general sense, I like meeting all the researchers from each team, learning about what they specialize in, and the stuff that they know. I really like the experience of being able to check in on everyone and see what other teams are doing. It’s nice that we have the expertise to help them. They have been working on their own ‘thing’ so much, and we can help them with our ‘thing.’

We have to be dynamic and work with other people which I think is really cool.”

How has it been entering into the world of engineering?

I’m in comparative literature and WGSS (Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies) but this has been a fun and new experience for me. I feel like engineering is an intimidating field so I’ve been surprised at how well I’ve been able to contribute and follow along. There’s a learning curve in everything and there’s a value in doing stuff that you don’t necessarily know that much about.”

Grace worked with Jackson Potter’s Team ElectroMech during summer 2020. Learn more about their plans for electro-mechanical design solutions for ecological research here.